Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, +

Search for:

LGBT History Month – Day 28 – Agnes

Agnes is a very special lady, born in 1939.

From the age of 12, she obtained her mothers post-hysterectomy hormones to feminise her body. At 19, she was referred to Dr Robert Stoller and interviewed by him, Dr Harold Garfinkel and Dr Alexander Rosen. Garfinkel was a sociologist interested in the way that gender worked.

Agnes was taken to be an example of testicular feminisation syndrome. She refused to meet or be classified with any other trans* person or any homosexuals. Garfinkel studied her case, and published academic papers on her intersex condition.

She was recommended for surgery as an intersex patient, at a time when such surgery was regularly denied to trans*. Surgery was completed in 1959 by a team of doctors. Stoller presented his findings at the 1963 International Psychoanalytic Congress in Stockholm; Garfinkel included an extensive chapter on Agnes in his pioneering 1967 book on Ethnomethodology.

Agnes was able to undergo surgery, and five years after this, she was able to tell doctors that she did not identify as intersex, but had told medical personnel this to enable to her to be cleared for surgery.

Just imagine this for a moment, a 19 year old girl in 1958, convinced the experts that she was intersex, and obtained her goal of completed gender reassignment surgery. After her surgery, she disappeared from the history books. If she is still alive, she will now be in her mid-seventies..